Monday, 30 July 2012

I am still at my own personal Olympic Games and featuring some of the photographs I took at the Olympia Museum in Greece a few weeks ago. There was something rather familiar about this chap. He reminded me of someone, not exactly sure who. A chap I met in a pub, maybe.

Friday, 27 July 2012

This photograph was taken at the museum in Olympia in Greece a few weeks ago and it makes a suitable image for the opening day of London 2012. I was watching the football competition last night (they start ahead of the main Games) and the pose in this particular statue reminds us that shirt pulling and body checking are nothing new.

Monday, 23 July 2012

There is nothing like cohabitation as an aid to dating. Hang on, let me explain that : I am, of course, talking about the dating of forgotten negatives. On the same strip as yesterday's photograph of Dundee was this picture of "The Discovery"; the ship used by Scott to get his team to the Antarctic in 1912. It eventually returned to Dundee in 1986 and was berthed at Victoria Docks until 1993 when it moved to its new home at Discovery Point. My picture shows the ship in Victoria Docks, so my journey must have been between 20 and 25 years ago. I will carefully search the rest of the negatives for further clues.

Sunday, 22 July 2012

Of course, as soon as I start shouting my mouth off about how my photographs fall into three distinct periods I manage to come across exceptions. This is a scan of a monochrome negative I took in the late 1980s or early 1990s during a visit to Dundee in Scotland. The film had been - rather badly - developed and printed by some high street processor. They obviously did very little monochrome work and seem to have put the film through the colour processing machine. My re-scan brings a bit of life back to the shot.

Friday, 20 July 2012

I am not entirely sure where I took this photograph. It is a scan of a colour negative and therefore it relates to the second of my three periods as a photographer : monochrome negative (1962-1984); colour negative (1984-1996); digital (1996 - date). I can normally remember where each photograph was taken but this is making me think. If I had to guess, I might plump for the American Virgin Islands.

Thursday, 19 July 2012

I am not sure at what point something stops being a photograph and becomes something else. I didn't take the original photograph - it shows a group of mill girls from Bradford back in the 1920s - but I did decide to crop and focus down on the shapes. Does that make it art? I have no idea, but it is pleasing.

Tuesday, 17 July 2012

The odd thing about re-scans of old colour negatives is that they never look quite as old as re-scans of monochrome negatives of the same age. I must have taken this picture 25 or 30 years ago. It was taken in Robin Hood's Bay in North Yorkshire. It could have been yesterday.

Wednesday, 11 July 2012

Another of my negative scans and this one dates back to the early 1980s when I was working as a lecturer in the Management Department at Doncaster Institute of Higher Education. I seem to recall that I took this photograph of a fellow lecturer, Vincent Healey, in the staff room one day. He was a lovely chap who combined his expertise as a senior lecturer in accountancy with a passion for horse racing. He could often be discovered hidden away in a stock cupboard, totting up columns of figures whilst watching the 3.15 at Kempton on the departmental television.

Tuesday, 10 July 2012

The thing I love about blogging is that it is a collaborative process. Yesterday I posted a scan of a picture I took thirty or forty years ago. I had managed to work out where the photograph had been taken from but I had missed the most interesting feature of the image which was the institutional building in the middle distance. I would therefore like to thank Lisa B for bringing my attention to it and asking me about it. I have to say that I am not 100% sure what the building was, but I think it might have been the old Halifax Borough Fever Hospital. The cemetery next to it is Stoney Royd Cemetery and that is still in existence but I suspect the hospital building is long gone. As soon as its stops raining I will set out in search of an answer.

Monday, 9 July 2012

Picture Post returns with another selection of scans of negatives I took 40 or so years ago. This picture was taken from the junction of Clare Road and Hunger Hill in Halifax. The houses on the right of the road have gone, but those on the left remain. And the hill, of course, is still there.

About Me

One time lecturer, writer on European Affairs and bus conductor, Alan Burnett now divides his time between walking the dog and a little harmless blogging. His News From Nowhere Blog has been running since 2006 and acts as a showcase for his ranting and writing and his photographs old and new.